my thoughts on FreeBSD

[m***@tasonline.com]

Hello,

Again, repeating on a message from an earlier email I sent out on the
list... if RedHat and SUSE are good enough that ISPs are using them,
instead of saying how silly ISPs are to turn their heads away from
FreeBSD, we NEED to be looking at what exactly RedHat & SUSE have that
FreeBSD doesn't. I doubt it's the cushy corporate backing, although
Novel will certainly have the inroads necessary to see a lot of old
Unix machines replaced with their SUSE/Novel boxes.

A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how
important is it that FreeBSD remain a TUI-only menu based
installation-?? Sure it's simple, but screen-shots of it sure don't
appear appetizing to ISPs in a 2 week window.

B) RH/SUSE both have great upgrade engines. -- I forget the command
line program in FreeBSD that allows you merge old settings w/ the new
settings.

C) The FreeBSD Foundation -- Great job w/ releasing Java, but I am sure
they can pull a lot more strings to start hiring UI Research Developers
and release their findings under a similar BSD license.


My last thought here...

I am not saying FreeBSD should be focused on Desktop users, but server
admins are starting to get a lot more "desktop-like" features from Mac
OS X Server, Win 2k3, even RH and SUSE. Bandwidth for running X11 over
SSH isn't a problem like it used to be.

Just some stuff to keep open for discussion.

-Matt

[s***@sremick.net]

Post by m***@tasonline.com
A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how
important is it that FreeBSD remain a TUI-only menu based
installation-?? Sure it's simple, but screen-shots of it sure don't
appear appetizing to ISPs in a 2 week window.

Actually, it's important for 3 reasons:

1) Compatibility. You can't even depend on 640x480 working on every piece of
hardware you might wish to install FreeBSD on. Some embedded applications
can't do any graphics.

2) Speed. I'm still rather green w/ FreeBSD compared to many, but I can fly
through the FreeBSD setup in just a few mins.

3) Old cruft. Apparently a lot of people are too scared of the whole
ncurses/sysinstall beast to dare revamping it. It works, and it's
tried-and-tested. It's easier and safer to make minor modifications to
support new versions than to overhaul it.

I wouldn't mind a GUI option, if there were enough people to maintain it,
but it'd need to only be an option (leaving the current ncurses install or
some other equivalently-easy text-based install for the die-hards). And then
you'd have to make sure there were people around enough to support 2
separate install scripts (unless a text-based one could be automatically
generated from the GUI one somehow, using templates).

Post by m***@tasonline.com
B) RH/SUSE both have great upgrade engines. -- I forget the command
line program in FreeBSD that allows you merge old settings w/ the new
settings.

Maybe you mean mergemaster? Mergemaster is very scary... an overhaul of that
part of the process would solve 80% of what makes updating FreeBSD an
unpleasant experience for the enduser. The rest is pretty painless, really,
once you get used to it. Not to say the other parts couldn't be made easier
for the normal desktop user... but mergemaster isn't even friendly for the
technically-savvy. :)

Post by m***@tasonline.com
C) The FreeBSD Foundation -- Great job w/ releasing Java, but I am sure
they can pull a lot more strings to start hiring UI Research Developers
and release their findings under a similar BSD license.

Agreed... the JVM is a sore point too. Although I have 1.4 working, there
are a lot of annoying hoops to jump through to make it happen. I wouldn't
want to wish it on my less-technical (yet FreeBSD-interested) friends.
Admittedly, it's Sun's fault more than it's FreeBSD's.

[d***@db.net]

Post by s***@sremick.net

Post by m***@tasonline.com
A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how

...>

Post by s***@sremick.net
1) Compatibility. You can't even depend on 640x480 working on every piece of

Naw, give them the choice up front and everyone is happy. Yes, sometimes
the installer can't make the video card work in graphics, sometimes you
want to use a serial port. (you are loading a server for example.)

Post by s***@sremick.net
2) Speed. I'm still rather green w/ FreeBSD compared to many, but I can fly
through the FreeBSD setup in just a few mins.

At least get rid of the confusion in the setup. Its confused me at times,
and I can assure you, I aint no newbie.

- Diane

[D***@Siemens.com]

Post by s***@sremick.net
3) Old cruft. Apparently a lot of people are too scared of the whole
ncurses/sysinstall beast to dare revamping it. It works, and it's
tried-and-tested. It's easier and safer to make minor modifications
to support new versions than to overhaul it.
I wouldn't mind a GUI option, if there were enough people to maintain
it, but it'd need to only be an option (leaving the current ncurses
install or some other equivalently-easy text-based install for the
die-hards). And then you'd have to make sure there were people around
enough to support 2 separate install scripts (unless a text-based one
could be automatically generated from the GUI one somehow, using
templates).

The sysinstall implementation started out as a quick-n-dirty hack, but
unfortunately it lived on. I've been pondering the solution to this for
a few months now. Frankly I don't see the absolute need for a GUI
installer, but it's certainly a nice thing to have. But a text mode
installer is essential. So the first step is to get a well designed
text mode installer.

The libh project (sysinstall replacement) is dead. I've have some ideas
on this topic, but it's a bit more than I can do on my own. However,
the only way stuff gets done in FreeBSD is for someone to get an itch
and do it, so I'll probably end up doing something soon.

David

[m***@btnaccess.com]

I've taught a number of non-technical people to install the BSD's and som=
e=20
linux's. With almost no exeptions they preferred the simpler installs.=20
Slackware installs as well as OpenBSD installs were what they liked best.

They did enjoy the Red Hat installs, but they liked the simple installs=20
better.

It's easy to want to look like windows, but let's face it. An Operating s=
ystem
cannot be all things to all people.

Marina Brown

Post by D***@Siemens.com

Post by s***@sremick.net
3) Old cruft. Apparently a lot of people are too scared of the whole
ncurses/sysinstall beast to dare revamping it. It works, and it's
tried-and-tested. It's easier and safer to make minor modifications
to support new versions than to overhaul it.
I wouldn't mind a GUI option, if there were enough people to maintain
it, but it'd need to only be an option (leaving the current ncurses
install or some other equivalently-easy text-based install for the
die-hards). And then you'd have to make sure there were people around
enough to support 2 separate install scripts (unless a text-based one
could be automatically generated from the GUI one somehow, using
templates).

The sysinstall implementation started out as a quick-n-dirty hack, but
unfortunately it lived on. I've been pondering the solution to this for
a few months now. Frankly I don't see the absolute need for a GUI
installer, but it's certainly a nice thing to have. But a text mode
installer is essential. So the first step is to get a well designed
text mode installer.
The libh project (sysinstall replacement) is dead. I've have some ideas
on this topic, but it's a bit more than I can do on my own. However,
the only way stuff gets done in FreeBSD is for someone to get an itch
and do it, so I'll probably end up doing something soon.
David
_______________________________________________
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-advocacy

org"

[m***@adept.org]

I've taught a number of non-technical people to install the BSD's and some
linux's. With almost no exeptions they preferred the simpler installs.
Slackware installs as well as OpenBSD installs were what they liked best.

coming from a slackware background (around '94), i find this humours. it
used to have the worst reputation (beside debian perhaps) for "ease of
installation". either times have changed, or the people just liked what
was explained to them in more detail. (or both.) ;)

-m

[p***@telus.net]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott I. Remick" <***@sremick.net>
To: <freebsd-***@freebsd.org>
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 1:08 PM
Subject: Re: my thoughts on FreeBSD

Post by s***@sremick.net
Maybe you mean mergemaster? Mergemaster is very scary... an overhaul of that
part of the process would solve 80% of what makes updating FreeBSD an
unpleasant experience for the enduser. The rest is pretty painless, really,
once you get used to it. Not to say the other parts couldn't be made easier
for the normal desktop user... but mergemaster isn't even friendly for the
technically-savvy. :)

I think they just need to revise the mergemaster(8) man page, they need to
explain the concept better. I understood how to use mergemaster after
someone explained it to me properly. I don't see how they could really make
this automated, because so many people have custom configurations and
different environments. However, some of the files processed by mergemaster
could be removed, or there could be an explanation of each file while
running the script.

--
Peter Kieser
***@telus.net

[n***@haldjas.folklore.ee]

Post by s***@sremick.net

Post by m***@tasonline.com
A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how
important is it that FreeBSD remain a TUI-only menu based
installation-?? Sure it's simple, but screen-shots of it sure don't
appear appetizing to ISPs in a 2 week window.

1) Compatibility. You can't even depend on 640x480 working on every piece of
hardware you might wish to install FreeBSD on. Some embedded applications
can't do any graphics.

this is not an argument against GUI installer, but simply keeping another
way open.

Post by s***@sremick.net
2) Speed. I'm still rather green w/ FreeBSD compared to many, but I can fly
through the FreeBSD setup in just a few mins.

you could teh same with a gui installer on anything - gui speed is really
unliekly to be an issue.

Post by s***@sremick.net
3) Old cruft. Apparently a lot of people are too scared of the whole
ncurses/sysinstall beast to dare revamping it. It works, and it's
tried-and-tested. It's easier and safer to make minor modifications to
support new versions than to overhaul it.

This is a very good reason for killing it.

[k***@gmx.co.uk]

On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 05:00:15 +0200 (EET)

Post by n***@haldjas.folklore.ee

Post by s***@sremick.net

Post by m***@tasonline.com
A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how
important is it that FreeBSD remain a TUI-only menu based
installation-?? Sure it's simple, but screen-shots of it sure
don't appear appetizing to ISPs in a 2 week window.

1) Compatibility. You can't even depend on 640x480 working on
every piece of hardware you might wish to install FreeBSD on. Some
embedded applications can't do any graphics.

this is not an argument against GUI installer, but simply keeping
another way open.

Actually this is a arguement against using it as a defualt...

Post by n***@haldjas.folklore.ee

Post by s***@sremick.net
2) Speed. I'm still rather green w/ FreeBSD compared to many, but
I can fly through the FreeBSD setup in just a few mins.

you could teh same with a gui installer on anything - gui speed is
really unliekly to be an issue.

Possibly...


If GUI is going to be on the defualt install disk it should come up as
giving an option of either gui or text...

[question+]

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On 2004-03-01 15:40 -0500, Matt Jarjoura <***@tasonline.com> wrote:

# Again, repeating on a message from an earlier email I sent out on the=20
# list... if RedHat and SUSE are good enough that ISPs are using them,=20
# instead of saying how silly ISPs are to turn their heads away from=20
# FreeBSD, we NEED to be looking at what exactly RedHat & SUSE have that=20
# FreeBSD doesn't. I doubt it's the cushy corporate backing, although=20
# Novel will certainly have the inroads necessary to see a lot of old=20
# Unix machines replaced with their SUSE/Novel boxes.

I could be wrong in this assumption, but I think a lot of people will
choose RedHat or SUSE over FreeBSD is in part of the support that they
get from those two vendors, and probably have the mentality that
FreeBSD's hardware support isn't up to snuff compared to Linux.

It could also be supply and demand kind of thing where customers will
recognize RedHat and SUSE, along with Linux... those same people may not
have heard or really know about FreeBSD.

<shrug>

--=20
Linh Pham question+***@closedsrc.org
Webmaster and FreeBSD Geek http://closedsrc.org
Apprentice Manager Editor and Writer http://www.daemonnews.org
Courage: The things I do for love | And So Western Civilization Crumbles

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[t***@yahoo.com]

Post by question+
I could be wrong in this assumption, but I think a lot of
people will
choose RedHat or SUSE over FreeBSD is in part of the support
that they
get from those two vendors,

Absolutely my experience. We are a Solaris/Cisco shop primarily
bc of the contracts. As a big company we have grand poobah
contracts with both companies that will land us a replacement
server/router/switch within a day. That is a HUGE deal. Bigger
than Sun hardware being better than i386, bigger than
performance, bigger than ease-of-use, etc..

=====
-----------------------------------------------------------
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with
democracy and with science.
--Carl Sagan
-----------------------------------------------------------

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools

[s***@sremick.net]

Post by t***@yahoo.com
Absolutely my experience. We are a Solaris/Cisco shop primarily
bc of the contracts. As a big company we have grand poobah
contracts with both companies that will land us a replacement
server/router/switch within a day. That is a HUGE deal. Bigger
than Sun hardware being better than i386, bigger than
performance, bigger than ease-of-use, etc..

I'm sure a place like http://www.freebsdsystems.com/ could be talked into a
similar sort of contract. Money talks, after all. Then there are these
lists:

http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/hardware.html
http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/consulting_bycat.html

[p***@telus.net]

My thoughts.. (on this topic that's been brought up so many times)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Jarjoura" <***@tasonline.com>
To: <freebsd-***@freebsd.org>
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 12:40 PM
Subject: my thoughts on FreeBSD

A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how important
is it that FreeBSD remain a TUI-only menu based installation-?? Sure it's
simple, but screen-shots of it sure don't appear appetizing to ISPs in a 2
week window.

Having a GUI installer for FreeBSD would get rid of the simplicity of the
FreeBSD /stand/sysinstall that we have gotten used to. I for one, *love*
FreeBSD's installation program. I can pratically do it in my sleep, and I
wish all Operating Systems had a installer that is easy to use as FreeBSDs.
Also, GUI installers do _not_ work with all hardware, and generally make an
installation take longer then neccessary. I can install a FreeBSD system in
<5 minutes on high-end hardware, why would I want this to take longer? Also,
I can do the installation pratically in my sleep. While it may be
"difficult" the first time around, after that you're pratically hooked.
/stand/sysinstall reminds me of NetWare 3.12/4.11 installation, which I
loved and still remember. ;-)

The ISP is not going to be looking for eye candy, they are looking for
SUPPORT. How well the product is supported in the mark, and how well it
works. Not because of some eye candy, high performance is necessary when you
are an ISP. So why do you think large ISPs use it? Look at Yahoo.

My last thought here...
I am not saying FreeBSD should be focused on Desktop users, but server
admins are starting to get a lot more "desktop-like" features from Mac OS
X Server, Win 2k3, even RH and SUSE. Bandwidth for running X11 over SSH
isn't a problem like it used to be.
Just some stuff to keep open for discussion.

FreeBSD has *always* been a more server-oriented distribution, and it will
continue to be so. I want to be able to run commands on the console, and not
go through some GUI based utility that takes me twice as long to figure out
what I'm doing. These types of tools should be optional, and not included in
the base distribution. FreeBSD's goal has always been to keep it simplistic,
and have the end-user add what they want, and that is what makes FreeBSD
appealing to the majority of it's user base.

I for one do not want to have to deal with X11 for a server. Waste of
memory, waste of disk space, and waste of time.

FreeBSD is lean, and mean. It may not be the most "leanest" of the *BSD's,
but add a XFree86 interface and this is just going to make the whole thing
more bloated. Let the person install this bloat if they want, do NOT include
it by default. I like FreeBSD because it's simplistic, doesn't include
"everything and the kitchen sink", works for my needs, and does not include
a GUI by default in the installation, and does not require me to hand pick
through the configuration to install the base system, and ONLY the base
system. It lets me customize the system after it's been installed, not
during the configuration. I can still realistically install FreeBSD over the
internet.

I started using FreeBSD when I was 12 (so i've been using it for about 5
years), and have enjoyed it immensely. Do not change what's proven to
attract it's user base. This discussion has been brought up time and time
again, and we've always decided to stick with the current way of doing
things.

--
Peter Kieser
***@telus.net

[D***@Siemens.com]

Post by p***@telus.net
I started using FreeBSD when I was 12 (so i've been using it for about 5
years), and have enjoyed it immensely. Do not change what's proven to
attract it's user base. This discussion has been brought up time and
time again, and we've always decided to stick with the current way of
doing things.

I don't think anyone wants to remove what's attracted the current user
base. We don't have to do things the "Linux" way. For example, while
sysinstall definitely needs an update, we still NEED a text mode admin
tool that is simple and efficient to use. Even if a GUI installer or
admin tool comes along, no one is arguing that the text mode tools need
to vanish to make way for it.

David

[l***@401.cx]

Post by m***@tasonline.com
Hello,
Again, repeating on a message from an earlier email I sent out on the
list... if RedHat and SUSE are good enough that ISPs are using them,
instead of saying how silly ISPs are to turn their heads away from
FreeBSD, we NEED to be looking at what exactly RedHat & SUSE have that
FreeBSD doesn't. I doubt it's the cushy corporate backing, although
Novel will certainly have the inroads necessary to see a lot of old Unix
machines replaced with their SUSE/Novel boxes.
A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how important
is it that FreeBSD remain a TUI-only menu based installation-?? Sure
it's simple, but screen-shots of it sure don't appear appetizing to ISPs
in a 2 week window.

If a ISP chooses server os based upon screenshots of the installer, I
doubt they will be able to stay in bussiness long.

Post by m***@tasonline.com
B) RH/SUSE both have great upgrade engines. -- I forget the command
line program in FreeBSD that allows you merge old settings w/ the new
settings.

The command line is 'mergemaster'. Shouldnt be too difficult to remember.

Post by m***@tasonline.com
C) The FreeBSD Foundation -- Great job w/ releasing Java, but I am sure
they can pull a lot more strings to start hiring UI Research Developers
and release their findings under a similar BSD license.

The Foundation could probably do a lot of good, but if it was up to
me, I would rather see more things like native Java then GUI's.

Post by m***@tasonline.com
My last thought here...
I am not saying FreeBSD should be focused on Desktop users, but server
admins are starting to get a lot more "desktop-like" features from Mac
OS X Server, Win 2k3, even RH and SUSE. Bandwidth for running X11 over
SSH isn't a problem like it used to be.

Ive seen hundreds, if not thousands, of linux servers. Never ever have
Ive seen a server run X11.

Post by m***@tasonline.com
Just some stuff to keep open for discussion.

I nearly lost a recent fight about whether to install RH or FreeBSD on
some brand new Dell PowerEdge 1650's. The reason to install RH was
native support for the onboard dual nic's, and the ability to 'team'
them to one virtual nic providing automatic failover and redundancy.
BSD had nothing that could provide something like that.
A lot of servers have these dual onboard nic's, I know for sure all of
the new Compaq and Dell's have them, and both Compaq and Dell provide
drivers for Win2k, linux, Netware and Solaris. None of them even
mention BSD.
I think this is where BSD is behind. Hardware monitoring and support
for those special features most server vendors equip their servers
with, thats what make people choose linux over BSD in the serverroom.
Redundancy and failure tolerance is the only thing that matters in
serious environments.

If you dont believe BSD is behind in this area, pick a random
motherboard and try getting the hardware monitoring to work. Unless
you have one of the very common Abit or ASUS boards, chances are you
will fail.

Just my 2 cents.

--
R

[k***@HotPOP.com]

On Mon, 1 Mar 2004 15:40:42 -0500

Post by m***@tasonline.com
Hello,
Again, repeating on a message from an earlier email I sent out on
the list... if RedHat and SUSE are good enough that ISPs are using
them, instead of saying how silly ISPs are to turn their heads away
from FreeBSD, we NEED to be looking at what exactly RedHat & SUSE
have that FreeBSD doesn't. I doubt it's the cushy corporate
backing, although Novel will certainly have the inroads necessary to
see a lot of old Unix machines replaced with their SUSE/Novel boxes.
A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how
important is it that FreeBSD remain a TUI-only menu based
installation-?? Sure it's simple, but screen-shots of it sure don't
appear appetizing to ISPs in a 2 week window.
B) RH/SUSE both have great upgrade engines. -- I forget the command
line program in FreeBSD that allows you merge old settings w/ the
new settings.
C) The FreeBSD Foundation -- Great job w/ releasing Java, but I am
sure they can pull a lot more strings to start hiring UI Research
Developers and release their findings under a similar BSD license.
My last thought here...
I am not saying FreeBSD should be focused on Desktop users, but
server admins are starting to get a lot more "desktop-like" features
from Mac OS X Server, Win 2k3, even RH and SUSE. Bandwidth for
running X11 over SSH isn't a problem like it used to be.

The big problem is that freebsd is meant to be done with what ever the
user want's to do with it... meaning... it is like X has few
predefined ways of doing things...

What it needs is a port that provides various management tools.

What would also be useful is a desktop oriented install with possibly
a more friendly looking TUI... which could also start X and auto start
it...

wmdrawer and a few quick scripts could take care of most of it...
still lacking something useful for sysctl... but script that take care
of updating and ect would be no prob to throw together as well as one
for handling some configuration... hmm, could be a interesting little
port...

[tim+]

Post by m***@tasonline.com
Again, repeating on a message from an earlier email I sent out on the
list... if RedHat and SUSE are good enough that ISPs are using them,
instead of saying how silly ISPs are to turn their heads away from
FreeBSD, we NEED to be looking at what exactly RedHat & SUSE have that
FreeBSD doesn't. I doubt it's the cushy corporate backing, although
Novel will certainly have the inroads necessary to see a lot of old
Unix machines replaced with their SUSE/Novel boxes.

My local ADSL ISP makes most of their money from corporate customers.
Home connectivity is merely for pocket change. Talking to the admins
(as well as some netcraft snooping) reveals that they run two OSes on
their web servers: FreeBSD and Redhat.

The reason for FreeBSD (they said) is stability. The reason behind
Redhat is three-fold: stability (452-day uptime on the mail server),
loyalty (most servers at the center started out on Redhat many years
ago), and the CEO claims to be an old-school kernel hacker. (However,
a quick `grep -r` for his name in the 2.6.3 kernel source gives a $? ==
1, so...)

Post by m***@tasonline.com
A) RedHat and SUSE both have GUI installers. -- Honestly, how
important is it that FreeBSD remain a TUI-only menu based
installation-?? Sure it's simple, but screen-shots of it sure don't
appear appetizing to ISPs in a 2 week window.

[...]

Post by m***@tasonline.com
I am not saying FreeBSD should be focused on Desktop users, but server
admins are starting to get a lot more "desktop-like" features from Mac
OS X Server, Win 2k3, even RH and SUSE. Bandwidth for running X11
over SSH isn't a problem like it used to be.

I'm certain that GUI installers aren't the reason for my ISP's use of
Redhat, since the mail server's still running a (patched) 2.0.40 kernel.
Redhat only started using a GUI installer during the 2.4 kernel series.

I've seen several people mention how quickly (and under which states of
consciousness) they can navigate /stand/sysinstall and it reminded me of
my experience with the Linux kernel config front-ends.

I like sysinstall for the same reason I prefer Linux' "menuconfig"
interface, but that doesn't make it well-designed. In fact, I've
noticed several problems with the interactivity and menu hierarchies of
both sysinstall and the Linux config systems.

I'll continue using Linux' menuconfig interface as well as FreeBSD's
sysinstall, glazing over when GUI apps are endorsed. It's just the way
I am. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind seeing some robust feature
dependency checking in menuconfig (as found in the xconfig interface).
Nor would I mind in the least if sysinstall allowed me to gracefully
break out of a distribution installation.

IOW, just because a tool is good doesn't mean there's no room for
improvement.

Just my US$0.02,
Tim Hammerquist

[j***@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org]

I have to agree with most of the posts before this one.

Since I have shifted my attention away from the OS, past workstation apps,
and onto development, I find I run into lots of little problems because I
don't have time to subscribe to every list on the site.

Even searching and asking don't always get results. It's this support
that's hard to come by. I have to say, I'm glad I'm not trying to use Java
on FreeBSD. That can be a nightmare.

NOTE: Please CC me, as I am not currently subscribed. Thanks.

jm